Michael Keaton revealed he saw a cut of the Beetlejuice sequel, adding that he can “confidently say this thing is great.”
The actor reprised his role as Beetlejuice for the upcoming movie, nearly four decades after playing the character in the 1988 Tim Burton-directed movie. Burton also returned to direct Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
During a recent interview on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show, Keaton described the sequel as “beautiful” visually as well as having surprisingly “emotional” parts in the storyline.
He said the movie “is beautiful, physically. The other one was so fun and exciting visually, it’s all that but really beautiful and interestingly emotional here and there. I wasn’t ready for that. It’s great.”
Keaton added, “It’s just so fun and I’ve seen it now. I’m going to see it again after a couple of little tweaks in the editing room, and I confidently say this thing is great.”
Ahead of filming, the actor also shared that he had to go back and watch the original movie to get an idea of what he was getting himself into again.
“I probably only really seen it from the beginning once or twice maybe,” he said. “So I hadn’t seen it for a long, long, long time so I did go back and look at it again.”
Earlier this year, Keaton explained that he and Burton both agreed they didn’t want the sequel to be too technology-heavy.
“It had to feel handmade,” he told People magazine last month. “What made it fun was watching somebody in the corner actually holding something up for you, to watch everybody in the shrunken head room and say, ‘Those are people under there, operating these things, trying to get it right.’”
The actor added, “It’s the most exciting thing when you get to do that again after years of standing in front of a giant screen, pretending somebody’s across the way from you.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, also starring Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, Justin Theroux, Arthur Conti and Burn Gorman, is set to open in theaters on Sept. 6.